The value of mobile music services is set to double in the five years to 2010, by which time they will exceed $11 billion, according to Informa Telecoms & Media. Although the majority of revenue will still come from ringtones, the forecast growth in the ring-back tone and full track download sectors confirms the concept of the mobile phone as a credible music device. A large sector of both the mobile and the music industries have galvanised around mobile music and for the last year have been helping to progress this sector. Handset manufacturers are devoting significant energy into creating sophisticated music devices and operators have been busy rolling out advanced music download services. According to Simon Dyson, co-author of the report, �the growth of mobile music has been astounding, from a cottage industry making basic monophonic ringtones in 1998 to a multi-billion dollar global business on which the music industry is staking much of its future.� All of this activity might suggest that mobile music is in something of a bubble at present and indeed there remains a large number of issues which need to be resolved at all points in the value chain before mobile music can truly move beyond its current ringtone staple.
The global streaming industry has spent the better part of a decade chasing subscriber counts as the primary metric of success. That era is now formally over. New market data from Omdia confirms that the industry has crossed a decisive threshold; one that shifts the competitive playing field from growth-at-all-costs to monetization discipline. For senior executives navigating media, advertising, and technology strategy, the implications extend well beyond entertainment. A Historic Revenue Crossover Online video revenue increased 13.5 percent to $176 billion in 2025, while pay-TV revenue declined 4 percent to $170 billion; marking the first time in the industry's history that streaming has surpassed legacy pay-TV in revenue terms. This is not a rounding error or a statistical artifact; it represents the culmination of more than a decade of structural disruption to the traditional broadcast and cable TV model. Global subscriptions to online video services reached 2.24 billion by the ...